Posted by Ryan Wilson

The Steelers franchised linebacker LaMarr Woodely prior to the lockout. Friday morning he tweeted this: "Wanted u 2 hear it here 1st- drafted here... super bowl here.. will retire here!! time 2 get u #7!! @STEELERS 4 LIFE!!"

Translation: the Steelers signed Woodley to a six-year, $61.5 million deal. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the contract "includes a $22.5 million bonus and will significantly reduce his previous salary cap number. He was to be on the books for about $10 million in 2010 because of the franchise tag the Steelers applied to him. His new salary cap number could be about half of that."

And a source tells PFT that Woodley will make $18.1 million in 2011, and $27 million over two years making him the second highest-paid player in team history behind quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. (By comparison, James Harrison signed a six-year, $51.7 million contract in 2009.)

Since the lockout ended, Pittsburgh hasn't been as aggressive in free agency as their cross-state counterparts, Philadelphia, but they have been busy rejiggering their roster. They cut Max Starks, Antwaan Randle El and Flozell Adams, and re-signed cornerback Ike Taylor and now Woodley, two key cogs in the league's best defense a year ago.

A former 2007 second-round pick out of Michigan, Woodley has 39 sacks in his NFL career, including 10 in 2010. The Steelers first-round selection in 2007, inside linebacker Lawrence Timmons, is now on the short list of players next in line for a new deal.

One final thought on the Woodley news: Joe Flacco must be psyched.

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Posted by Josh Katzowitz

Say this for Ravens WR Derrick Mason: even if he’s prone to a little bit of hyperbole, he’s going to defend his teammates until the end.

Obviously, Mason heard that Steelers LB LaMarr Woodley said that Baltimore QB Joe Flacco could never lead the Ravens to the Super Bowl (because, naturally, they couldn’t get past Pittsburgh to do so) and then listened to Bengals LB Dhani Jones -- who has become somewhat mouthy lately as well -- saying, in effect, that Flacco is not good at his job when he’s pressured.

Well, Mason takes issue with the Flacco criticism. That’s apparently why he told the Carroll County Times that the reason Flacco has taken some crap this offseason is because everybody is frightened of him (Flacco’s awesome wedding pictures notwithstanding). 

“When you're good, people are scared of you," Mason told the paper. "Honestly, that's what I've seen. When people realize the potential that you have, they get very, very scared and then you see them scrambling to say bad things about the guy.

"Joe doesn't care. He really doesn't. For the Woodleys and the Dhani Jones and the rest of them, you see there aren't no head coaches or general managers and no smart players saying Joe can't play. The last thing you want to do is wake up a sleeping giant. Whether he says it or not, they've given him added fuel."

While you might not think of Flacco as one of the game’s elites -- he’s probably no better than a top-10 quarterback at this point -- he’s also improved in each of his three seasons in the league. His completion percentage continues to climb, his passing yardages and touchdowns continue to rise, and his interceptions continue to drop.

But the big question is this: could Flacco lead his team past the Steelers and into a possible Super Bowl? Because until then, he’s going to be ripe for criticism for defenders around the NFL. Even if they are "scared" of his potential.

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Posted by Josh Katzowitz

When Ravens QB Joe Flacco and his longtime girlfriend, Dana Grady, got married last month in Philadelphia, we wrote about what you should buy for them off their Crate & Barrel registry.

Now, we get pictures off the blog of wedding photographer Jason Prezant. And there are quite a few cute ones (I particularly enjoyed the one taken at the movie theater with the popcorn flying).

But the best one of all – and the most football-y one out there – is the one you see below.



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Posted by Ryan Wilson

Got a link for the Hot Routes? Hit us up on Twitter (@CBSSportsNFL)

• CBSSports.com's Mike Freeman thinks "a handshake agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement will happen next week, not on Thursday or Friday." Either way, that's welcome news.  
  
  
• ESPN.com's Matt Williamson thinks Shawne Merriman "is done." In that sense, he should complement former Bills first-rounder Aaron Maybin nicely.

• Redskins QB update via CSNWashington.com blogger Rich Tandler: "I would say there is zero chance that the Redskins are interested in [Jimmy] Clausen. Think they would rather go with who they have." Washington should subscribe to the addition-by-subtraction personnel philosophy more often.

• Ricky Williams' chances of returning to the Dolphins are only slightly better than Clausen's chances of ending up in DC.

• Steelers beat reporter Ed Bouchette thinks Ike Taylor will re-sign with Pittsburgh but isn't "100 percent" sure.

• We thought this went without saying since the Broncos spent a first-round pick on Tim Tebow a year ago, but the team has no interest in a poor man's Tebow, aka Terrelle Pryor.

• Like most fans, Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo has given up following the day-to-day goings-on of the lockout. We don't blame him.

• It took a while, but Joe Flacco finally admitted that he would've said the exact same thing Steelers linebacker LaMarr Woodley said about him last month.

• Former Broncos third-rounder Maurice Clarett and former Jags first-rounder Reggie Williams have been added to UFL rosters.

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Posted by Ryan Wilson

We joked earlier that if you're weary of the Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning arguments, you could refocus your energies into deciding if Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg knows what he's talking about when he says that Michael Vick could be better than Steve Young.

Well, it seems there's no escaping Brady-Manning. NFL Network finally unveiled the No. 1 player in their countdown of the top 100, and Brady was the big winner. (In related news, Dhani Jones has asked for a recount.) Manning, of course, was No. 2.

Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who ended up fourth on the list, on why Brady was deserving of the honor:

“He’s not the biggest. He was never the strongest. He was never the fastest. He was overlooked. He went in the sixth round. So with that being said, all of the intangibles that a quarterback is supposed to have, they overlooked with him because it was burning from the inside of him. ...

“It’s a chess match because he understands every coverage, he understands every defense. And if you give it away too early, then the game is like checkers then for him. He plays it how he wants to play it. … And that’s what makes it frustrating playing against him; he always finds those mismatches. … You don’t find too many people playing (who are) willing to sacrifice that much time to do that. That’s why Tom Brady will always be considered one of the greatest of all time.”

Football Outsiders agrees with Lewis. Looking at the last five years of FO's quarterback efficiency ratings, Brady ranked fifth in 2006, and first in 2007, 2009 and 2010 (Brady missed all but 15 minutes of the 2008 season with a knee injury). Manning ranked first in '06 and second every season from '07-'10 (which includes '08, when Drew Brees was first).

So it's finally settled … except that Lewis' teammate Derrick Mason thinks that a) Peyton is "hands down" the NFL's best player and that b) Joe Flacco is the Ravens' "Michael Jordan."

We're still waiting to hear what Terrell Suggs thinks about all this.

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Posted by Ryan Wilson

In the eyes of Derrick Mason, Joe Flacco might be the Ravens' Michael Jordan, but Peyton Manning is, "hands down," the best player in the NFL. It might be hard to reconcile those two statements since, by all accounts, Jordan was the best player in the NBA ever, but Mason can explain.

During a radio appearance on The Norris and Davis Show, Mason was asked about how he voted for the NFL Network's top 100 players.

“I don’t think I ranked all 100 players. I think I ranked maybe 20 guys and that was it because I wasn’t sitting down there and ranking 100 guys. I don’t even know all 100 guys to sit down and rank them, so I ranked maybe 20 of them," Mason said, according to SportsRadioInterviews.com.

"When you look at the rankings and you look at the importance of a player is this: not the type of season that he had, one seasons or two seasons that he had, it’s what player do I kick off a team and it changes that team dramatically? I only know one player and it’s Peyton Manning. You take Tom Brady off New England, they showed that they can go 11-5. Now you take Peyton Manning off the Colts I don’t know where that teams goes offensively."

The man makes a good point. (Although, presumably, Brady is perfectly happy with how his life -- professionally and otherwise -- turned out.)

And CBSSports.com's Andy Benoit, writing for the New York Times, writes that the Colts, without Manning, are "a perennial 5-11 team. No hyperbole." That said, Benoit ranks Peyton No. 2 behind -- you guessed it -- Tom. CBSSports.com's Pete Prisco has Manning and Brady tied for first.

"How can you pick between them?" Prisco asks. "Rings? Advantage to Brady, but Manning won the last one of the two. MVP awards? That goes to Manning. Numbers? Manning. You make the call."

One thing we can all agree on: The Flacco-MJ comparisons are a reach. Or, to quote fellow Eye on Football blogger Will Brinson, "This is an analogy that should be shrugged off faster than Byron Russell." (Benoit doesn't rank Flacco among the NFL's top 10 QBs, and Flacco doesn't crack Prisco's top-100 players list.)

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Posted by Josh Katzowitz

A big Mazel Tov to Ravens QB Joe Flacco, who married his longtime girlfriend, Dana Grady, in Philadelphia last weekend.

The Baltimore Sun wrote that Flacco and Grady started dating in high school. They’ve been together for nine years, and the two married in the same church where Flacco’s parents had wed.

Conveniently, the couple is registered at Crate & Barrel.

Here are a few things I recommend you buy for the happy couple (keep in mind, gift cards are welcome).

• A tea bag squeezer: The couple needs only one, and it’s an affordable $4.95.

• A large Artesia bread/cracker dish: For $17.95, give the Flacco’s a place to hold their bread during dinner.

• A 3x3 flameless pillar card: If you want to help the Flacco’s set the mood, you’ll need to spend $7.95. Or you could spend about $16 and get them two. Don't be cheap. Get them two.

But buy these gifts soon, because most of their needs have been fulfilled. And don’t forget: cash always makes a good gift. Especially during times of a lockout.

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Posted by Will Brinson

For a guy who holds the Ravens' record for passing yards and passing touchdowns and has taken his team to the playoffs in each of his first three years in the league, Joe Flacco doesn't seem to get a whole lot of love.

Example: LaMarr Woodley of the Steelers recently said as long as Flacco was quarterbacking the Ravens, Baltimore wasn't going to make it to the Super Bowl. Flacco, for his part, didn't agree with Woodley's take, saying the Pittsburgh linebacker "doesn't know what he's talking about."

Wide receiver Derrick Mason, swinging by ESPN's First Take on Wednesday morning, also disagreed. In fact, he went so far as to claim Flacco is the Ravens' version of Michael Jordan.

"[The Steelers have] had our number for the last couple years," Mason said via Michael David Smith at PFT "I equate it to the Chicago Bulls, they couldn’t beat the Pistons, and then they finally beat the Pistons."

The only natural follow-up, of course, involves whether the Ravens have that little piece of the puzzle that was Michael Jordan for the Bulls.

"Flacco is our Jordan," Mason said. "He’s our Michael Jordan."

Now, I like Joe Flacco. And I think he gets way too much, um, flak for his performance, from opponents and Ravens' fans alike. But this is an analogy that should be shrugged off faster than Byron Russell.

First of all, football doesn't swing in momentum the way that basketball does, primarily because there aren't best-of-seven series, and because it's impossibly more difficult for a single player to exert an influence on the entirety of the game.

Also, Flacco is not the Baltimore version of MJ, in case he's actually going to turn out to be the greatest player in NFL history, and we just haven't realized it yet.

So it's unfair of Mason to even think about putting that kind of pressure on his quarterback, much less lobbing such a statement out there on national television. Unless, that is, as Steelers Lounge 's Adam Gretz puts it, Mason's referring to the MJ the baseball player.

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